Court clears way for Marin desal plant, but water district has no plans to pursue project

The Marin Municipal Water District's desalination plant proposal has no more legal impediments, but its plan to send bay water to taps is nowhere close to reality.

This week the State Supreme Court refused to reconsider a 1st District Court of Appeal ruling in May that said the water district complied with the California Environmental Quality Act when it approved an environmental impact report for the desalination project.

"It's pretty much the end of the line," said Frank Egger of Fairfax, president of the North Coast Rivers Alliance, which joined several other parties in the lawsuit challenging the desalination project.

While the water district prevailed, its general manager said there are no immediate plans to move ahead with the project, which would take San Rafael Bay water and subject it to various forms of treatment to produce drinkable water through reverse osmosis technology.

"It is on the back burner, there are no current plans to move forward," said Krishna Kumar. "But it is gratifying to know that the court agreed we followed the law and met all CEQA requirements."

A 5-million-gallon-per-day desalination plant, expandable to 15 million gallons per day, was the option selected by the board in August 2009.

But in 2010 the water district's Board of Directors decided to halt further work on the $115 million project because water demand had declined. That trend has continued, and officials point to weather conditions, the economy and water conservation as the reasons.

In November 2010, district voters approved a ballot measure that requires a vote of residents to construct a desalination plant.

Egger's group said the water district's plan did not take into account the impact on marine life, an opinion that Marin Superior Court Judge Lynn Duryee agreed with in a August 2011 ruling. She concluded the water district failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act when it approved an environmental impact report for the desalination project.

But in its May ruling, the appeals court disagreed: "Having considered this record, we conclude that the EIR's description of the environmental setting was more than adequate."